When The Lights Go Down On Broadway
by Swing Girl At Heart
Summary: It's a perfectly normal day when the power goes out, and it never comes back. In the aftermath of a chaotic global blackout, several people struggle to survive as they brave the journey home.
1. While The Sky Is Falling

_While The Sky Is Falling_

_Nine minutes left_

"Yes, of course, Mr. Van de Sandt," Kurt rattled off into his headset as he rushed down the corridor toward his boss's office, dodging a few other employees and struggling to keep the latte in his right hand from spilling. "Absolutely. I'll have Ms. Wright send you the finished spread ASAP."

Ending the call, Kurt ducked through Isabel's office door, finding her amidst a chaotic sea of random splashes of color and fabric swatches, her hair slightly disheveled and her forehead deeply knotted.

"Van de Sandt's getting impatient," Kurt said, pressing the warm latte into her hand. "He wants the summer designs by ten o'clock."

Isabel pressed her hand to her forehead, groaning in exasperation. "Well, he won't get them by ten. But I think we can do it by four." She sniffed, taking a long sip from her latte. "Looks like we're in for a long night, Kurt."

Kurt nodded, disappointment settling in the pit of his stomach. He'd been hoping to Skype with Blaine when he got home, but it looked like that wouldn't be happening. "I'll text my roommates and let them know I won't be home."

"Make it quick," Isabel waved him off.

Quickly stepping back out into the hallway, Kurt pulled out his phone and typed out a text to Santana and Rachel telling them that just because he wouldn't be home, it didn't mean either of them had permission to touch the slice of cheesecake he'd been saving in the fridge. He then sent a second text to Blaine:

_Sorry, I'm stuck at work all night… I'll make it up to you, promise ;)_

He didn't wait for a reply before sticking his phone back into his pocket and returning to Isabel's office. He'd check his inbox later.

* * *

_Six minutes_

Blaine smiled at the text from Kurt, sending a simple _No problem Xoxo _and dropping his phone back onto his desk, turning back to his calculus homework. As much as he'd been looking forward to Skyping with Kurt, it was cool that Kurt was living an adult life, where he could get stuck at work all night and have to play their Skype schedule by ear. It was nice to be a little bit unscheduled.

There was a knock at the door and Cooper leaned in, making Blaine look up from his textbook. "Hey, Bee, you want to go get some pizza or something? I'm starving."

Blaine laughed. "Kitchen not full enough for you?"

"Come on, I'm only in town for a couple days," Cooper grinned. "Spend some time with your big bro."

"I have homework to do."

"You're such a nerd. Come _on_."

Blaine dropped his pencil down, teasingly rolling his eyes. "Alright, fine, I'm coming." He stood up, grabbing his jacket from his closet.

"Well, if it's such a _chore_—"

Blaine lightly punched his brother in the arm, pushing him out of the way. "Shut up, Cooper. Let's go."

* * *

_Two minutes_

Burt yawned, his fingers gently squeezing Carole's shoulder as she rested against him on their living room couch. They'd settled into a somewhat new tradition of watching old movies after dinner, which Burt enjoyed even though he was mostly sure it was because ever since Finn had passed Carole didn't seem to know what to do with herself in her free time. She was always the one to pick the movies since Burt didn't really care what they watched, and lately she'd been on an Audrey Hepburn kick. Tonight was _Charade._

"You falling asleep?" Carole asked softly, her hand on his knee.

"I'm awake." Burt blinked a few times to wake himself up a little more. He wasn't anywhere near old enough to be falling asleep at 7:30.

"Walter Matthau was surprisingly good-looking," Carole mused absentmindedly as onscreen Hamilton questioned Audrey Hepburn's character.

"Yeah? Think I should gel and comb my hair like that?" Burt asked.

"If you had any hair to speak of."

"Hey!" Burt chuckled, nudging her. "I could at least grow the mustache."

Carole snorted. "Yeah, you do that."

On the television, Audrey Hepburn shook her head. "_Mr. Bartholomew, if you're trying to frighten me… you're doing a first-rate job!_"

Burt jumped as there was a very abrupt clicking noise, and the television suddenly shut off along with every lamp in the room.

Carole groaned. "Ugh, why'd the power have to go out? It's not even storming and we didn't get to the scene with the game of oranges."

Burt sighed, unwinding his arm from around her to stand up. "I'll go check the circuit breakers." Glancing out the window when he reached the kitchen, he saw that every house down the street, and even the streetlamps, had gone dark. "Looks like it wasn't just the circuits, Carole," Burt called over his shoulder, fumbling for the drawer where they kept the flashlights. "I think the whole town's out."

"Burt, my cell phone isn't turning on," Carole replied from the other room.

Finally pulling open the right drawer, Burt picked up a flashlight and clicked the On button, but the flashlight lay dead and useless in his hand. Frowning, Burt reached for the spare, to no effect; even the spare was unusable. Carole stumbled into the room, nearly hitting the kitchen table in the shadows.

"Flashlights are dead," Burt said.

"Is your phone working?"

Burt fished it out of his pocket, pressing a few random buttons. The screen remained dark. "What the hell? I just charged it two hours ago."

Carole made her way carefully to the front door, stepping out onto the porch to peer down the street. Burt followed suit, leaning over the porch railing to see a couple of cars that looked like they'd coasted to a stop in the middle of the road, their drivers standing confusedly next to them.

"Burt," Carole hissed, grabbing his arm. She pointed up towards the empty sky, her eyes wide. Burt followed her gaze, and his heart dropped into the pit of his stomach.

"Oh my God…"

A massive airplane was spinning downwards, catapulting through the air and heading straight for downtown Lima.

* * *

"Okay, Pizza Hut or Domino's?" Cooper asked as he steered the car towards the center of town.

"Ew to both," Blaine replied. "Can't we have _good_ pizza?"

"Pizza Hut _is _good— What the hell?"

Cooper was abruptly cut off as every light in the car suddenly vanished, the engine sputtering to a stop. Blaine flinched as the car swerved. Cooper quickly pulled the emergency brake before they could crash into the cars parked by the sidewalk, the vehicle jerking violently to a stop.

"What the _hell_ just happened?" Cooper snapped, twisting the key in the ignition again.

Blaine's eyes widened and he slapped Cooper's shoulder. "Coop. Look."

Through the windshield, the two of them watched in stunned silence as every car on the road ahead of them and behind slowed to a stop, their headlights blinking out as the streetlamps died one after the other. The darkness swept over them and continued to spread, every building in view losing the lights from their windows and signs. People on the sidewalks stopped walking, looking around in confusion or frustratedly punching numbers on their phones.

"Jesus…" Cooper breathed.

Blaine pushed his door open and got out of the car, hoping he'd see a police officer or, at the very least, someone who looked like they knew what was happening.

"Hey, Bee, is your phone working? Mine's not."

Digging his phone out of his pocket, Blaine tapped it a few times to no avail. He squinted at his watch, noticing that the second hand had stopped spinning. "No, and my watch stopped too."

"The hell is going on?" Cooper muttered, jiggling the key in the ignition.

Blaine's head snapped up as a scream echoed down the street from a couple blocks away, quickly followed by another, then another and another. People were beginning to run, all in the same direction – towards Blaine and Cooper. There was an odd whistling roar from above, and Blaine's gaze flew skywards.

An airplane was reeling out of control with a loud metallic groan, its windows dark as it hurtled towards them.

"Cooper!" Blaine yelled, but Cooper had already jumped out of the car and seized Blaine by the arm, dragging him away from the car. They bolted in the opposite direction, falling into step with the tide of screaming people rushing away from the falling jet. There was an awful metallic screech, and Blaine glanced over his shoulder as he ran, seeing briefly that one of the plane's wings had torn off halfway.

"Come on!" Cooper shouted, grabbing Blaine's wrist.

The roar of the wind was deafening, and Blaine suddenly felt the earth rock beneath his feet as the plane collided with the ground, crushing buildings and cars and people beneath it. A split second later, the plane's fuel tank exploded, and Blaine was thrown into the air.

* * *

Kurt was attempting to help Isabel choose whether teal or cyan was more fitting for July when the lights in the office went out, Isabel's computer whirring softly as it shut down. Isabel bolted upright. "That did not just happen," she said. "We have to get this done in a matter of less than nine hours! We do not have time for this!"

"Isabel," Kurt said softly, staring out the office window at the city spread out beneath them.

Every building was going dark, the lights going out in a massive tidal wave across Midtown, and then Manhattan, and then the city beyond.

"Whoa," Isabel breathed, standing beside Kurt with her jaw slack.

"Do we have flashlights?" Kurt asked.

"Just my iPhone," Isabel replied, already fiddling with it. "…But it's not working. Are you _kidding_ me?!" she muttered.

Kurt was about to try his own phone, but movement outside caught his eye, and he flinched back away from the window. "Oh my God."

A tourist helicopter was falling out of the sky as if the blades could no longer spin, careening towards the ground so quickly that Kurt could almost hear it whistling. It vanished behind a building a couple of streets away, and half a second later a massive explosion lit up the block. The windows of the office rattled.

Isabel yelped and stepped back. "What is happening?" she shrieked.

Kurt's heartbeat was thudding in his ears, his stomach twisted into knots. "I – I don't know."

* * *

When the power went out, Rachel had been in the middle of taking a patron's order, and she along with Santana and Dani had watched in confusion as the traffic outside came to a halt, the street going dark around them.

"This is the weirdest blackout I've ever seen," Dani said after realizing none of their phones would turn on. "Do you think the whole city was shut down?"

"No idea," Santana replied, peering through the glass at the front of the restaurant with her hands cupped around her eyes. "Looks like it, though. I don't see any light coming from anywhere else."

"I'm scared," Rachel admitted, wringing her hands and nervously smoothing her apron.

"Why?" Santana deadpanned, still leaning against the window. "It's just a blackout. New York's had them before."

Rachel shook her head. "Something just doesn't feel right. I don't—"

"_GET DOWN!_" Santana suddenly screamed, whipping around and running to grab Dani and Rachel. She dove to the ground, yanking the two of them down with her just as there was a huge _roar_ from outside and the windows all shattered in the same instant, bursting inwards as a fireball erupted in the street outside. There was a cacophony of screams, coming from seemingly all directions, and Rachel felt hundreds of tiny shards of glass rain down on them.

Rachel's breath heaved, her hands shaking as she pushed herself back up, carefully avoiding the glass on the floor. "W-Was that a bomb?" She could barely hear herself speak over the ringing in her ears.

Santana shook her head, her eyes wide. "Helicopter."

* * *

Blaine coughed, spitting out dirt and pieces of gravel as he grabbed the sidewalk curb he'd landed beside, attempting to pull himself up. His ears felt blocked, a high-pitched whining the only thing he could hear. All he could smell was smoke and fuel and… blood. He could smell blood.

The pavement felt unstable beneath him, and he nearly fell sideways when he tried to stand. He ended up sitting on the curb, hoping the dizziness would subside. There were people still screaming and running around him, but they were all muted beneath the ringing in his ears. Everything seemed like it was moving in slow motion.

Blaine clenched his hands, trying to regain the feeling in his fingertips, and realized his skin was wet a moment before a stinging jolt shot up his arm. Looking down, he saw that nearly all the skin was gone from his right palm, the wound clogged with gravel and bleeding sluggishly. His left forearm down to his elbow was also scraped raw, the skin left with patches missing.

He blinked, trying to clear his head. He must have hit it; he couldn't think clearly.

Cooper.

Where was Cooper?

Swallowing the nausea building in his throat, Blaine pushed himself to his feet, bracing himself against the rear end of the nearest car. His hand left a bloody smear.

Blaine finally tried to actually _look _at the chaos surrounding him, his eyes searching for his brother's face. There were people running, cars tipped over, and the gargantuan body of the crashed plane – a Boeing 747 commercial jet – lay ruptured and burning two blocks away. The towering flames were the only thing illuminating the town.

And there were bodies in the street.

Blaine doubled over and vomited onto the pavement, clutching the car for support.

"_Cooper!_" he screamed, his voice sounding muffled in his own head. He gritted his teeth and walked unsteadily into the road. "Cooper, where are you?!"

Staggering through the cars and pieces of debris littering the street, Blaine screamed his brother's name again and again, praying he'd find Cooper and he'd be okay and they could go home as quickly as they could. He refused to look at the handful of unmoving bodies he was forced to pass by.

He screamed until his voice echoed back.


	2. After Midnight

_After Midnight_

Rachel hugged her chest, sitting on the floor behind the restaurant counter and listening to the shouts from countless people outside. Santana and Dani were crouched next to her, Dani gently dabbing at a cut on Santana's forehead with a napkin. The patrons were long gone, all running into the fray like lemmings.

"Do you think this is a terrorist attack?" Rachel asked, staring at her shoes.

Neither Santana nor Dani answered her.

"You know we can't stay here," Dani said quietly.

"I don't want to go out there," Rachel shook her head.

Dani dropped the napkin onto the ground, rolling back to sit on her heels. "We can't just hide back here forever. We don't know what this is. The safest place to be is home."

"You live in the opposite direction from us," Santana said.

Dani shrugged. "So I'll go home with you guys. I'd rather be there than in my shoebox apartment with my deodorant-hating roommate anyways."

"How are we supposed to get home?!" Rachel demanded, fighting tears. "All the cars stopped, a helicopter crashed literally right outside, and our phones won't turn on! I don't think the buses or the subway are an option!"

"Then we'll walk," Dani insisted flatly.

"That'll take hours!"

"Well, what do you expect to do?!" Dani snapped, throwing her hands up. "Just sit here until help arrives?"

"Be quiet, both of you," Santana ordered. "Rachel, Dani's right. We need to go home."

"So now you're just going to side with your girlfriend?"

"Yeah, because she's _right_," Santana spat. "Listen, compared to a lot of people out there, we're okay. When the ambulances come, they're going to have more people to worry about than us. We can walk, so let's walk."

Rachel huffed. "It's _dangerous_."

"Then stay here if you want." Santana brushed off her knees and stood up; Dani followed suit.

"We should take the Williamsburg Bridge," Dani said, tugging nervously on her hair. The light from the burning wreckage outside flickered off of her and Santana's skin, leaving Rachel in the dark on the floor. "It's a little further but I don't want to take the tunnel."

Santana nodded and turned to Rachel. "Are you coming?"

Rachel sighed, swallowing the lump in her throat. "I wonder if Kurt's okay," she said softly.

Santana pressed her lips together. "Rachel, please come with us."

After another moment's hesitation, Rachel gritted her teeth and stood up with them. She didn't want to be outside, but she really, _really _didn't want to be alone. "Okay," she said. "Okay, let's go."

The broken glass crunched beneath their high-heeled boots as they made their way to the front of the restaurant, Rachel gripping Santana's hand like a lifeline. Dani was the first to step outside, cautiously looking up and down the street for any signs of immediate trouble. The remains of the helicopter lay diagonally in the street, nearly upside down and in flames, so hot that they could feel the waves of heat rolling off it from where they stood. One of the blades had broken off and spun through the air, stabbing straight through the windshield of an empty car just a few feet away.

"I think everybody's cleared out of the block," Dani said over her shoulder. "Come on."

The three of them ducked out of the restaurant, leaving the shattered windows and spilled salt shakers behind. Too afraid to let go of each other's hands, the three of them meandered through the stopped cars, overturned buses, and debris littering the road, and together they headed southwest.

* * *

Blaine's vocal chords felt as though they were scraped as raw as his hands and arms, and the dizzying nausea had anything but subsided. But the ringing had faded from his ears now, and his brain was scrambling to make sense of the clamor of people shouting and running in the opposite direction or frantically calling for help.

"_Cooper!_" Blaine screamed again, wincing in pain as his throat protested. Maybe Cooper had answered, maybe he hadn't; Blaine wasn't entirely sure he'd be able to hear it if Cooper responded.

The smoke rolled away from the wrecked plane fuselage, clogging the air and turning it foul. Blaine coughed, his eyes watering, and called for Cooper. There was no response beyond the roar of the burning plane.

He stopped short in his tracks, suddenly recognizing Cooper's leather jacket a few yards away in the darkness, lit only by the fire in the fuselage. The air rushed out of his lungs in half a second, and he broke into a run, dropping to his knees. Cooper was lying unmoving on the pavement, one arm limply stretching out in front of him like he was reaching for help. From the ribs down, Cooper's body had been crushed by a car thrown away from the explosion, and a small trail of blood was idly dripping from the corner of his mouth.

"C-Cooper?" Blaine said as loudly as he could muster, his voice cracking. He shook Cooper's shoulders. "Coop. Cooper, wake up!"

Panic squeezed into Blaine's chest, his ribs almost cracking under the pressure. He jumped back onto his feet, throwing his entire body weight into the exposed underside of the car in an attempt to make it roll off of Cooper's legs and torso.

"It-it's okay," Blaine promised aloud, slamming his weight into the car a second time. "I'll get you out, and we'll go home." He slammed the car again, and again, and again. "_Somebody help me!_" he screamed over his shoulder, his muscles straining to push the car away.

No one heard him, and Blaine desperately beat the car until his knuckles had bled all over his hands and his shoulders were bruised black and blue.

* * *

Santana's feet were aching with every step by the time they reached the Williamsburg Bridge at the south end of Manhattan. They'd gotten lost three times (it was difficult to navigate in almost total darkness) and narrowly escaped seven lootings, and all the walking and running had set Santana's feet on fire. She was sure Rachel and Dani felt the same way, though neither of them complained beyond a slight wince every time they took a step. After all, they'd been traveling for almost two hours (Santana thought so, at least, but couldn't tell for sure) and they were only about halfway to Bushwick.

Stepping onto the bridge, Santana shivered in the cold breeze wafting up from the East River, and felt Dani and Rachel instinctively huddle closer for warmth. Santana craned her neck for a moment to look through the bridge's rails at the black water below, reflecting nothing, and saw the outline of a motorboat floating aimlessly downriver.

"What I wouldn't give for a heated blanket right now," Dani muttered, her teeth chattering. Santana wished she'd brought a sweater with her to work that morning.

"My feet hurt," Rachel remarked faintly, sounding as if she didn't expect anyone to hear her.

Santana had to suppress the urge to roll her eyes as she reached up to rub warmth into her arms. Rachel _would_ be the first to whine about it.

But holy _hell_, Santana's feet really did hurt.

The breeze buffeted their clothes and hair as they trekked across the bridge, making their shoulders shake in the cold until they stepped onto the solid ground of Brooklyn. Rachel stopped suddenly, forcing Dani and Santana to halt as well.

"Okay," Rachel said, leaning down to unzip the red fake leather boots. "I can _not_ walk in these for another mile."

Santana held up a hand. "Whoa, so you're just going to walk through Brooklyn with no shoes at all?"

"I already have massive blisters and I'm pretty sure I also developed plantar fasciitis in just the last hour," Rachel countered, balancing on one leg and lifting her foot to yank the boot off. "No shoes is better than these."

"Well, then no crying when you step on a rusty nail or a druggie's discarded syringe," Santana shrugged.

"I'll be fine," Rachel insisted, tugging off her other boot.

* * *

"Burt, you've been trying to turn on your phone for the last two hours," Carole said, stepping out onto the porch with a burning candle in her hand.

"And I'm going to _keep_ trying until I can get ahold of Kurt," Burt replied flatly from where he sat on the porch steps.

Carole sighed and sank down to sit next to him. "Burt, this is probably just a fluke that happened here. I'm sure New York is fine."

"I'll believe it when I see emergency services from Columbus drive into town."

Carole pressed her lips together, pulling her shawl closer around her shoulders in the chill. She set the candle on the step beside her.

Burt let out a huff, giving up on his phone for the time being. He rubbed a palm over his forehead in agitation.

"I bet Kurt's just fine." Carole reached over to consolingly squeeze his knee.

"There aren't any planes, Carole," Burt said quietly. "I've been watching, and not a single plane has flown over. There's no cars, no planes, no phones… This is more than just Lima."

Carole swallowed audibly. "Do you think it's a terrorist attack or something?"

Burt shook his head. "I don't know. It just… it feels wrong. It's not just a blackout."

Carole stared up at the blackened sky, lit only by the stars. At least the stars were still there. "Everything will be better tomorrow," she said. "I'm sure of it."

* * *

Blaine beat the car until his muscles were numb and he could no longer lift his arms, then sank to the ground, his chest heaving. Cooper didn't move. Blaine leaned back against the underside of the car, exhausted, and he looked upwards at the stars, praying for a rescue helicopter. He wasn't that far from home, but he didn't want to leave Cooper behind.

"Blaine?"

Blaine's head snapped up so quickly that it hurt his neck. Will Schuester was standing a few feet away, his face streaked with soot and his clothes dirty.

"Blaine, oh my God, are you okay?" Will knelt next to him, placing a hand on his shoulder.

"I-I, uh…" Blaine blinked, suddenly feeling like he was about to cry. "I'm fine."

Will looked down, seeing the open wounds on Blaine's hand and forearm. "Come on, we need to get you home."

"I'm not leaving."

Will's eyes flickered to Cooper, his mouth pressing tightly shut when he recognized Cooper's face. "Blaine, you need to get home. Come with me, I'll take you."

"No, I – I can't—" Blaine shook his head. "I'm staying."

Will's hand tightened around Blaine's upper arm, pulling him to his feet. Blaine dug his heels into the pavement.

"Let go of me!" he shrieked. "I'm not leaving!"

"Blaine, it's not safe here—"

Frantically, Blaine beat his hands against Will's chest and arms, leaving sticky, bloody prints all over his teacher's shirt. "Let _go!_"

Will seized Blaine's bruised shoulders, looking him directly in the eye. "Cooper's gone, Blaine! There's nothing you can do!" he shouted. "You need to go home!"

"_SHUT UP!_"

Will refused to let go, still pulling him away from Cooper's body. "Blaine, I promise, someone will come and get him, but for now you need to _go home_."

Blaine screamed as Will dragged him along the road, fighting him every step of the way. He scratched and hit and kicked as much as he could, but his limbs were already fatigued and his teacher was much bigger than he was. Eventually, Blaine couldn't scream anymore, his throat feeling torn to shreds, and Will pulled him out of town and into the dark.

* * *

As the three girls headed deeper into Brooklyn, it only grew darker around them. The moon wasn't up and the only lights they could see were the stars overhead and the occasional candle or kerosene lamp in a window. They huddled close to stay as warm as possible, but the cool spring night raised goosebumps on their exposed arms and legs and even though their breath wasn't fogging, their skin was icy to the touch.

"I'm fr-freezing," Dani said through chattering teeth.

"Where is everybody?" Rachel asked, clutching her boots in her hand.

"Probably looting or hiding at home," Santana replied absentmindedly, squinting at the street signs. "Come on, this way." She turned down a smaller street in the vague direction of Bushwick.

"Screw it," Dani said, stopping in her tracks. "I can't wear these anymore either." She reached down and unzipped her boots.

"Told you," Rachel muttered. Dani ignored her.

"Holy _crap_, the ground's cold." Dani gave herself a shake as her bare feet pressed into the pavement. "Still, better than before." She tucked her boots into the crook of her arm so that she could hold them while blowing warmth into her hands.

"God, this city is so creepy in the dark," Rachel said as they started walking again.

"Everywhere's creepy in the dark," Santana remarked. "Especially when it's littered with abandoned cars."

"I feel like we're in the beginning of _The Walking Dead_."

"Dani, don't _say_ that!" Rachel gasped. "I'm freaked out enough as it is."

"If there are redneck zombies on their way to eat us right now, I'm going to be pissed," Santana drawled. "I do not need to fight off Hungry freaking Boo-Boo from eating my brains."

Rachel grimaced at the mental picture. "Where do you think Kurt is now?"

"He's probably on his way home," Dani assured her. "Just like us."

"He'll be there when we get—" Santana was abruptly cut off as Rachel shrieked, lurching forward and barely catching herself on Dani's shoulder.

Dani pulled Rachel upright. "Whoa, you okay?"

"I – I…" Rachel stammered, her teeth gritted and her voice shaking. She was putting all of her weight on her right foot, holding the left a few inches above the ground and clutching Dani for support. "I think I stepped on a piece of glass."

Santana swore under her breath, resisting the urge to say _I TOLD you this would happen_. She reached over and gripped Rachel's other arm to support her. "We're not going to be able to see anything here."

"I don't feel good…"

"Shut up, Berry," Santana snapped, glancing around the street for anything to help. A little further up the block, there was a convenience store with its windows smashed in. "There's a store up there that might have bandages. Come on."

"What, are you going to steal bandages for me?" Rachel asked through clenched teeth, trying to breathe evenly as Dani and Santana supported her weight. The three of them hobbled up the road, weaving around the abandoned vehicles.

The front of the store was wide open, the windows and door destroyed. "Santana, we can't steal from—" Rachel started as Santana left her clinging to Dani, stepping through the window.

"Hey, people have been looting TVs and iPods all damn night," Santana argued, already inside the store. "I think a little First Aid won't be such a big deal."

"Get some water too," Dani said, shifting Rachel's weight against her. "Okay, Rachel, I need you to sit down for a minute so I can put my boots back on."

Rachel nodded, squeezing her eyes shut and holding her breath as Dani lowered her to the sidewalk. She whimpered as her injured foot lightly scraped the concrete. Dani brushed her feet off and quickly zipped her boots back on, then helped Rachel work one of her boots back onto her undamaged foot.

"What do you want to do with this one?" Dani asked, holding up the right boot.

Rachel shook her head, wincing. "Just leave it. After tonight, I don't want to ever see these things again."

"The feeling's mutual," Dani agreed, tossing the boot to the side before turning to call over her shoulder. "Santana, you find anything?"

"Yeah," Santana replied from the depths of the shop, invisible in the shadows. "People are idiots; all they ever steal is beer. Plenty of good stuff left. I haven't found any First Aid though."

"My foot really hurts," Rachel said, her jaw held tight. She was trying not to cry. "I think I hit a tendon or something."

"You'll be fine," Dani promised. "Once we get home we can light up some candles and treat it."

Rachel let out a pained huff of a laugh. "A candlelit medical treatment? How romantic."

Santana re-emerged from the shop then, carrying two full plastic bags. "I couldn't find any bandages, Rachel, so you'll have to wait until we get home," she said. "But I got water and pretty much the entire stock of Power Bars, so who's hungry?"

For ten minutes, the three girls allowed themselves to sit on the sidewalk and rest, eating energy bars and re-hydrating. They silently watched the sky above, all three of them hoping a plane would fly past, signaling that they hadn't been left completely alone.


	3. In The Shadow Of The Watertowers

_In The Shadow Of The Watertowers_

It took the girls another two hours to make it all the way back to the loft, and by the time their apartment building stood looming and dark in front of them, Rachel had nearly passed out.

"You doing okay, Rachel?" Dani asked, tugging on Rachel's arm as she and Santana half-carried her to the building's front door.

"I… I f-feel dizzy…" Rachel stuttered, sounding almost like she was falling asleep.

Santana hefted Rachel's weight up. "Come on, Berry, quit being such a drama queen and keep your foot up. We're home. Two more minutes and we can put a Band-Aid on it."

Dani wrenched the door open, holding it back with her shoulder as they struggled to maneuver the three of them inside all at once. The door swung shut behind them, plunging them into absolute and total darkness, without even the stars to light their way. Santana led the way up the stairs, familiar with the curve of the wall and the height of each individual step. With some difficult navigation and a _lot_ of muscle power, Dani and Santana were able to pull Rachel up the stairwell to the loft door.

Fumbling for her key in the dark, Santana finally unlocked the apartment and pulled it back. "Let's get her onto the couch," she said, Rachel's arm tightening around her as they crossed the threshold. Santana heard Rachel's foot drag on the floor for a moment and felt her flinch, but Rachel didn't make a sound.

They eased Rachel onto the sofa, Santana immediately leaving Dani to help Rachel prop her injured foot up on the coffee table. Setting the bags of water and energy bars they'd carried for the second half of their journey onto the kitchen table, Santana rummaged through the kitchen drawers in search of matches.

"I think I'm bleeding on the carpet," Rachel commented quietly.

"Bleed all you want," Santana flapped a hand over her shoulder. "I've been begging Hummel to get rid of that ugly rug for ages." Her fingers closed around the box of matches they kept in the drawer by the stove. "Rachel, where does Kurt keep that kerosene lamp he got at the flea market?"

"Um… in his room somewhere, I think," Rachel replied.

Santana ducked behind Kurt's curtain, striking a match and holding it up to light the space as much as possible. She spotted the old-fashioned lamp sitting atop Kurt's bureau as decoration and quickly walked over to light it. Gently placing the glass chimney back over the small flame, Santana turned up the wick and smiled to herself in relief as, for the first time since just before the power vanished, light washed over her.

She carried the lamp and the matchbox back to the living room, setting them on the table beside Rachel's foot so that they could see the damage.

"Holy…" Dani exhaled, her eyes widening at the wound in Rachel's heel.

Santana felt her stomach twist at the sight of it, and she swallowed the urge to throw up.

"Is it bad?" Rachel asked, pushing herself up on her elbows.

"Well," Santana paused. "The good news is you weren't overreacting."

Letting out a heavy breath and steeling her nerves, Santana knelt by the coffee table so that she could examine the injury more closely. Rachel's heel was slowly dripping blood onto the tabletop, and a jagged piece of glass as long and wide as Santana's thumb was protruding from the torn skin.

"Okay, Dani, can you run to the bathroom and grab a couple of towels, and get a bottle of water," Santana requested, pulling the lamp closer. "And the vodka from the fridge." Dani nodded once and did as she was asked.

"Kurt's not here," Rachel said faintly, her voice wavering almost imperceptibly.

Santana sighed. She'd been so preoccupied with getting Rachel's foot treated that she hadn't even noticed their third roommate wasn't there. "I'm sure he's fine."

Dani returned with the supplies before Rachel could say anything further. Santana carefully placed a folded hand towel under Rachel's heel and poured a small amount of water over the wound, making Rachel hiss through her teeth in pain.

"Relax, I'm just rinsing it off before I do anything."

"What are you going to do?"

"The piece of glass has to come out, then we'll wrap it up as best we can."

"Do you have a First Aid kit?" Dani asked.

"Yes," Rachel answered.

Santana shook her head. "No, we have a box of Band-Aids. You need stitches. We'll go to the hospital as soon as we can. Rachel, hold your foot back," she directed, pushing on Rachel's toes. She twisted the cap off the bottle of vodka and splashed a bit over the blood-flecked glass, making Rachel's leg jerk up. Rachel yelped.

"Okay," Santana said, brushing her hands off on the skirt of her uniform. "Okay, Rachel, I'm going to take the glass out now. On the count of three."

Dani quickly went to sit beside Rachel on the couch, wrapping her hand around Rachel's fingers.

"Deep breath," Santana said, taking the shard of glass between her fingertips.

Rachel clenched her jaw, humming a shaky, tuneless note under her breath.

"One." In a single fast movement, Santana gave the glass a sharp, forceful tug, and it came loose with an awful, gut-wrenching _squelch_.

A scream ripped from Rachel's throat.

* * *

Will kept a firm hand on Blaine's shoulder as they trekked through the dark outskirts of Lima, only speaking up to make sure they were going in the right direction to Blaine's house. Blaine had stopped fighting a while after they'd lost sight of the plane wreckage, and had resigned to quietly walking beside Will with his arms hugging his abdomen.

"Blaine, are you okay?" Will ventured at one point, though he knew it was an idiotic question.

Blaine didn't answer him.

They reached the bottom of Blaine's driveway and saw a few candles burning in the front window, though the rest of the house was dark. "I'll walk you up," Will said, steering Blaine onto the path leading up to the house.

"Blaine?!" called a voice from the door. "Oh, God, _Blaine!_" A woman rushed down the steps to meet them, throwing her arms around Blaine the moment he was within reach. "Are you all right?" She squinted at Will in the shadows just long enough to see that he wasn't Cooper. "Blaine, where's your brother?"

"Mrs. Anderson, I'm so sorry…" Will started. "Cooper, he—"

"Tell me he's okay."

Will pressed his mouth shut, at a complete loss.

"Mom," Blaine said softly.

Mrs. Anderson's body began to shake, the movement barely visible in the darkness, and she pulled her son closer to her side. "Thank you," she said, "for bringing Blaine home."

* * *

The night seemed to drag on for ages as Santana and Dani sat at the kitchen table, the kerosene lamp set between them and Santana's legs resting in Dani's lap. They'd wrapped Rachel's foot tightly in strips of cloth torn from an old exercise shirt, then let Rachel drink a shot of vodka and fall asleep on the couch, her foot still propped on the coffee table.

It was disturbingly quiet, apart from Rachel's light snoring. There were no sirens, no sounds of traffic, none of the typical noise of nighttime in Brooklyn, and neither Dani nor Santana felt much like sleeping. Santana had changed out of her uniform and lent Dani a set of clothes as well, the both of them huddling under oversized sweatshirts Santana usually had reserved only for days when she didn't leave the apartment.

Dani looked over at Rachel's sleeping form hidden under several blankets. "You think she'll be okay?"

Santana glanced over her shoulder for a moment. "Yeah, sure. I mean, we stopped the bleeding and cleaned it out pretty well. We'll take her to the hospital once the power comes back." She rested her chin in her hand, gazing out the blackened windowpane. "I wonder what time it is."

Dani peeked at her wrist. "Almost five in the morning."

"How is your watch still working?"

"It's a wind-up," Dani replied, tapping the watch's face with a fingernail. "No battery." She stretched her legs out beneath the table. "Man, my legs are sore."

Santana made a noise of agreement in her throat, reaching for a bottle of water from the bags they'd carried back.

"Santana, aren't you worried about Kurt?"

"Why?" Santana frowned. "You think something happened to him?"

Dani shrugged with one shoulder, leaning back in her chair and intertwining her fingers. "I don't know. A lot of stuff happened to a lot of people; it's hard not to think about, at least."

Santana shook her head. "I'm sure he's fine," she said, wondering in the back of her mind how many times she'd said that exact phrase in the hours since the blackout.

"Look," Dani changed the subject, nodding towards the kitchen window. "The sun's coming up."

Sure enough, the stars had faded and the sky was gradually growing lighter from behind the silhouette of New York in the distance. Santana lifted her sore legs out of Dani's lap and crossed the kitchen, pulling the window up and swinging herself over the ledge onto the fire escape outside. She reached back to give Dani a hand through the window as the sky above them slowly turned pink.

Leaning their elbows against the rail, the two of them watched the sunlight silently and steadily flood the city. Neither of them said a word, both grateful and reassured that the sun was still there.

* * *

The sun had swung high in the sky by the time Rachel came back around, and Santana brought a bottle of water to where she sat on the couch. "How's your foot?" she asked, sitting in the adjacent armchair as Rachel took a long drink.

Rachel swallowed half the bottle before she replaced the cap and set it to the side. "Hurts," she answered. "But better than last night."

"Good."

"Thank you," Rachel said. "For taking care of it."

Santana shrugged. "I have a lot of siblings; I'm used to people getting injured."

"Well, thanks just the same." Rachel glanced around the apartment, her eyes scanning every lamp in sight. "Did the power come back on?"

"Nope, not yet. Probably will at some point today."

"Is Kurt back?"

Santana shook her head.

"Where's Dani?"

"Crashed in my bed."

"Didn't you sleep?"

Santana shrugged. "Wasn't tired."

Rachel quirked an eyebrow. "We walked like ten miles last night, if you count all the times we got lost. How are you not tired?"

Santana only gave another shrug in response.

Rachel let out a long breath. "I hate to ask this," she started. "But… I have to pee."

Santana rolled her eyes. "Fine." She stood up and leaned over to wrap an arm around Rachel's upper back, letting Rachel hang onto her neck as Santana pulled her upright. "We've got to get you some crutches or something, because I will not help you with this every time you need to tinkle. You are _not _allowed to be a diva right now."

Rachel only chuckled.

They were halfway to the bathroom when the door suddenly gave a loud rattle, and the girls froze in their tracks. It was quiet for all of two seconds before the door rattled again, rocking back and forth slightly on its rollers.

"Someone's trying to get in," Rachel whispered, her limbs rigid.

There was a massive reverberating _bang!_ as whoever was on the other side gave the door a frustrated kick. Santana swallowed and helped Rachel to sit in one of the chairs at the kitchen table, then made a beeline for the drawer where they kept the knives.

"You're going to stab them?!" Rachel hissed, her eyes wide.

"It might be looters," Santana insisted under her breath as the door _banged_ again. She walked to the door, leaning her ear close to try to hear anything distinctive from outside.

Dani came into the living room from behind Santana's curtain, her hair and clothes disheveled. "What's going on?"

Santana pressed a finger to her lips, one palm on the door handle and the other clutching the knife, holding it poised at chest-level.

"_Rachel?_" called a muffled voice from the other side. "_Santana? Hello?_"

The three girls in unison let out a heave of breath in relief, Santana dropped the knife to her side and hurrying to unlock the door, quickly yanking it open.

"Jesus, Hummel, don't—" Santana stopped short, her jaw going slack.

Kurt stood just outside the door, out of breath and his clothes dirty, the entire side of his head, neck, and shoulder caked with dried blood. His eyes flickered down to see the blade gripped in Santana's fist.

"...Were you just about to stab me?"


	4. In These Bodies

_In These Bodies_

"What the _hell _happened to you?!"

"Why were you going to stab me?!"

"I thought you were a looter!" Santana insisted, dropping the knife onto the kitchen table.

"Looters don't knock!" Kurt argued.

"_You_ didn't knock!"

Dani finally cut in sharply, raising her voice. "Hey! How about you stop squabbling and actually deal with the problem?" She pointed to Kurt's head injury.

There was a badly bruised laceration on his temple, and the hair surrounding it was caked with blood in a wide streak down the side of his neck. Kurt lightly prodded it with a slight wince. "It's not as bad as it looks," he said.

"Kurt, you look like you lost a gallon of blood," Rachel deadpanned.

"Head wounds bleed a lot," he waved her off, still out of breath. "I'm fine." He made a beeline for the kitchen table, grabbing a bottle of water and chugging the entire thing in a matter of thirty seconds. "Please tell me we have food; I haven't eaten since yesterday lunchtime."

Rachel handed him a Power Bar. "That's all we have that doesn't require the stove or microwave." He didn't seem to care, gratefully tearing it open. "What happened?"

"Got caught in a minor riot back near the Gershwin Theater, which is where I lost my keys," he replied, taking one of the chairs at the table with Rachel. Dani dumped the contents of a few water bottles into a large mixing bowl and retrieved a washcloth from the bathroom as he spoke. "People were looting like crazy. I was just trying to get past them, but someone kind of hit me with a baseball bat."

Dani frowned, sitting in the chair next to him and soaking the washcloth in the bowl. "A baseball bat gave you this cut?"

"The bat was broken when it hit me."

Dani made a face, wringing out the cloth. "Okay, lean back." She began to gently scrub the dried blood from Kurt's skin and hair.

"Where were you all night?" Rachel asked. "We were worried sick."

Kurt flinched and hissed through his teeth when Dani brushed over the cut. "Isabel convinced me to stay the night in the office," he explained. "I wanted to leave right away, but she said it wasn't safe, I'd get hurt, et cetera. Long story short, I left first thing this morning and I still got hurt— _Ow!_"

"Sorry," Dani said, pressing a little too hard on Kurt's wound.

Kurt huffed and forced himself to stay still as Dani scraped the dried blood away from his skin. "Do you guys have any idea what happened to the power?"

"If we could watch the news we might," Santana said flatly. "But no. Any theories?"

Kurt shrugged. "Terrorist attack?" he suggested. "I keep thinking I should Google it, but that's obviously a bad plan." He coughed, his throat sounding hoarse and dry, and reached for another water bottle.

"Careful, we have to ration that," Dani said.

"I'm sure the power will be back way before we have to worry about rationing anything," Rachel countered.

Kurt took a long swig. "Did you guys run into any trouble on your way back?"

"We didn't get caught in any riots," Santana said, "but Little Miss Genius over here took off her shoes and stepped on glass." She nodded pointedly at Rachel, who indignantly slapped Santana's arm with the back of her hand.

"Those boots were _killing _me!" she protested.

"And how'd the glass treat you?"

Kurt glanced down at Rachel's feet, noticing the bloodstained improvised bandage wrapped around her left heel for the first time. "_Jesus_, Rachel!"

"It's fine, Santana got the glass out."

"I'm a full-on Army field medic," Santana declared.

"By the way, Santana, I still need to pee."

Santana rolled her eyes and stood to help Rachel to the bathroom.

* * *

Mercedes wiped sweat from her face, peeking through the Venetian blinds covering the window to her tiny apartment, feeling more grateful than ever that her door had two locks on the inside. Since the power had gone out, she'd managed to stay safe inside the apartment, but her roommate had never come home and without the electricity to run the air conditioner, the building was quickly heating up, baking under the sun. The faucets wouldn't work (the pumps were long dead) and Mercedes had already run out of water.

This kind of crap _would _happen during a rare April heat wave, Mercedes thought bitterly.

She swallowed nervously, chewing on her lip as she scanned the area outside through the gap in her blinds. She hadn't seen anyone in the street below for a while – at least, no one alive. A man's corpse lay on the pavement sprawled across the yellow line, just beginning to bloat under the sun's glare. Mercedes hadn't actually seen him die, but from the condition of his limbs, he had probably been trampled.

For what had to be the thousandth time, Mercedes pulled her phone from her pocket and pressed the power button, her lips pressing together when it did nothing in response. She tried not to think about what Ohio might look like now, or where her parents and brothers might be. She wasn't an idiot. She knew the blackout wasn't exclusive to Los Angeles. Planes had crashed in the streets, dropping from the sky in almost perfect unison, and since then she'd not seen anything electronic work.

There were no Army Humvees plowing down the streets, carrying the National Guard to rescue people from their own homes.

There were no police officers, no ambulances, no Red Cross helicopters.

There was a dead man already rotting in the street right in front of her apartment building, and she swallowed and turned away from the window as a black crow swooped down and perched hungrily on the corpse's chest.

There was no one coming to help.

* * *

The sky was beginning to grow dark again over New York as Kurt and the girls sorted through the contents of the refrigerator, food spread out over the kitchen table in a half-organized chaos.

Rachel paused to stare out the window at the bright gold and pink streaks across the clouds, the corners of her mouth turning down in disappointment. "I was hoping the power would be back on by now," she sighed.

"Midtown's probably in shambles," Kurt added, dropping a no-longer-frozen package of ground beef into the quickly filling trashcan at the end of the table. The blood had been scrubbed from his skin, his bloodstained shirt thrown out and exchanged for a hoodie, and his cut had been taped over with three large Band-Aids.

Santana abruptly dropped the cans she was scrutinizing for expiration dates back onto the tabletop with a solid _thunk_. "Does anybody else think we're being a little too casual about this, or am I the only sane one here?"

Dani and Kurt exchanged a wary look. "About… what, exactly?" Kurt prompted.

"Uh, this entire city's gone up in flames in less than twenty-four hours," Santana said slowly, her eyebrows sharply pulled down. "And none of us can call home. And we're just sitting here sorting the food that'll keep from the food that'll go bad like we've done this before."

Rachel swallowed, her hands pressed flat against the table. "Santana, it's just a power outage," she said.

"No," Santana shook her head, her voice growing harsher. "No, a power outage is when the power grid goes dead. Are we just going to ignore the fact that all of our phones died simultaneously? Are we _not_ going to talk about the helicopter that crashed right in front of the diner?" She pressed her lips together for a moment, and for half a second Kurt saw her chin tremble. "This is not a power outage."

"Well, what do you expect us to do about it?" Rachel asked, throwing her hands up.

"I don't know, maybe panic just a _little_?"

Kurt paused, leaning forward with his arms braced against the back of a chair. "Santana, we're all terrified," he said gently. "What good is panicking going to do?"

Santana let out a heavy huff of breath, backing away from the table and raking her fingers through her hair. "You're right," she acquiesced. "Sorry. I'm just tired."

Dani stepped around Rachel and took Santana's arm. "Come on, let's go to bed," she urged quietly. "You haven't slept since yesterday morning."

"Kurt and I can finish up here," Rachel offered, gesturing to the pile of cans and various food products strewn across the table.

Santana rubbed her eyes in exhaustion. "I need to change Rachel's bandage."

"I'll do it," Kurt cut in. "Go get some rest."

Dani nodded gratefully to Kurt and Rachel as she guided Santana out of the room, one arm looped around Santana's middle back.

Kurt grabbed the rest of the cloth strips Santana had torn and set on the kitchen counter, then swung a chair over closer to Rachel and sat, patting his knee. "Okay, Rachel, let me see your foot."

Rachel leaned back in her seat, wincing as she raised her leg to rest her foot on Kurt's thigh. Kurt delicately unwound the cloth strips from around her heel, his lip curling at the smell of old blood as he dropped the soiled makeshift bandages onto the table and muttered something about it being highly unsanitary. He lifted her ankle up to get a better view of the wound in the diminishing evening light filtering in through the window.

"Rachel, this looks… really nasty," he said grimly.

Rachel leaned her head against her fist, propping her elbow on the table. "Yeah, I know."

"You'll need stitches eventually."

"I swear to God, Kurt, if you sew me up post-apocalypse movie style, I _will_ kill you," she said in what was probably supposed to be a joking tone. Kurt could hear her voice shake.

"Relax, I don't have the stomach for that," he replied, wrapping a strip snugly around her heel (Rachel flinched, letting out a small whimper at the renewed pressure).

Rachel remained quiet as Kurt finished bandaging her foot, carefully tying it around her ankle so that it wouldn't slip. As he finished, she spoke so softly that for a few seconds Kurt wasn't entirely sure he'd heard her. "I miss my dads."

Kurt swallowed, leaning forward to wrap his fingers around her hand. He knew how she felt; the question of whether or not his parents (and Blaine) were all right had been hanging heavily in his chest for a long time.

"They'll be okay, Rachel," he said, mostly to reassure himself. "Promise."

* * *

Blaine watched the pavement pass under his feet in a daze, his mother gripping his hand as they walked toward downtown Lima. Any other day, he'd probably tug his fingers out of her grasp in embarrassment, but at this point he didn't really care. His dad strode silently beside them, pushing along a collapsible gurney that they'd stolen from a capsized ambulance a mile back. The air still carried the putrid stench of burning fuel and leaking engine lines, even several blocks away from the crashed plane, and it made Blaine's stomach churn.

Under the sky alit with bright orange streaks in the sunset, Lima had been turned into a ghost town. Storefronts had been smashed and gutted, cars left crooked in the street, and the few people that they saw carried themselves furtively, like mice darting for cover. The blackout seemed to have caused an almost literal shift in the earth.

"Blaine, do you remember where he is?" his mom asked, her fingers squeezing slightly as her voice cracked.

"Gina, for God's sake," said his dad, maneuvering the gurney around two cars that had collided in the middle of an intersection.

Blaine swallowed his nausea and turned down the adjacent street. Up ahead loomed the mangled and half-blackened shell of the airplane, casting a skeletal shadow over the block. The fuselage was on its side, one wing stretching up into the air like a steeple. The other wing, ripped from the hull mid-air, protruded from a building two blocks in the other direction, half-buried in the brick wall.

Gina's shoulders dropped, the air rushing from her lungs. "Oh, C-Cooper, baby," she cried, letting go of Blaine's hand so that her fingers could cover her mouth.

Cooper was just where Blaine had left him, and Blaine wanted to scream at the top of his lungs until they withered away inside his ribs.

Timothy set the gurney aside and placed a hand on Gina's back, wrapping an arm around Blaine's shoulders. "Come on," he said gently, his voice thin and hoarse. "Let's get him out of there."

Without a word, the three of them pushed against the underside of the overturned car, their muscles straining to roll it just a foot or two away. Blaine gritted his teeth, throwing his body into it as much as he could and ignoring the sting of the scabbed-over patch of skin on his hand. A bird called from somewhere overhead.

The silence was broken by a sob from Gina as she clenched her jaw and pushed on the car with all her strength.

Slowly, the car gave a small groan and tipped back until it rolled onto its roof, its windows shattering as the weight suddenly shifted, and it lay there upended and slightly rocking back and forth. Cooper's blood had been smeared across the side.

Timothy squeezed Blaine's shoulder. "Help me get him onto the stretcher," he said, retrieving the gurney and collapsing it so that it lay flat against the ground beside Cooper.

Blaine felt the air tighten around his mouth and nose like he was in a vacuum, and his chest constricted until he could barely breathe, but he clenched his fists and stepped forward to do as his father asked. They carefully turned Cooper onto his back, then Blaine gripped Cooper's mangled legs and helped Timothy lift him onto the gurney.

"Where are we…" Blaine trailed off for a moment. "Where are we taking him?"

Timothy pulled the gurney up so that it stood back on its wheels, then shrugged off his jacket and draped it over Cooper's upper body, covering his face. "We'll find a nice place for him to be buried. Away from all this."

"The cemetery?"

Timothy shook his head and swiped a palm over his eyes, his voice thick. "Somewhere nicer."

Blaine realized with a jolt that he'd never seen his father cry, and terror suddenly flooded his body from head to toe.

* * *

Mercedes wasn't willing to venture out into the city until nearly sundown, an empty backpack on her shoulders and a pack of matches in her pocket. Hugging her chest, she worked her way through the streets as the light gradually bled out of the sky, leaving burning red streaks of clouds behind it. Sweat beaded on her forehead, and her heartbeat was practically all she could hear as she walked. Her mouth had been dry for hours, her tongue feeling like sandpaper, and she decided that for the rest of her life she would always keep a well-stocked supply of water in her kitchen.

At last she came to the large supermarket where she normally bought her groceries and half-jogged across the parking lot, disliking the feeling of being so out in the open. The automatic doors were no longer functioning, but she stuck her hand between them and wrenched them open with a grunt of effort.

Inside was dark, and it was nearly impossible to see anything beyond a few feet away from the door where she'd come in. Luckily, she was familiar enough with the store to remember where most of the sections were, and she headed straight for the aisle where they kept the bottled drinks. She struck a match, cupping her hand around it to protect the flame as she fumbled through the shelves in search of bottled water, feeling like she'd struck gold when she found it. She twisted the cap off a full two-liter bottle and drank greedily, swallowing as if she'd not had water in a year.

Mercedes splashed a little on her face and the back of her neck to cool herself down, kneeling to shove a couple bottles into her backpack. She yanked two one-gallon jugs off the shelf as well.

It had been barely a day since the blackout, and Mercedes would never again take water for granted.

Her backpack was nearly full – canned goods, granola bars, anything long lasting and calorie-heavy – when she ran out of matches. She mentally berated herself for not stocking up on matches before food, but she managed to fumble her bag closed in the dark, already looking forward to heading home.

There was a resounding _click_ behind her, and something cold and metal pressed into the small of her back.

"Whatever money you have on you, give it to me," snarled a man's voice close to her ear.

Mercedes froze, the air in her lungs turning to ice. "I-I don't have—"

"_Now!_"

The shout reverberated into the void of the empty and massive room, and Mercedes quickly lifted her hands. "I don't!" she swore. "I don't— I don't have anything. Please, I just want to go home. P-Please."

Mercedes yelped, flinching as the man's hand was suddenly touching her, roaming quickly over her body as his other fist kept the gun kept pressed firmly to her back.

"Please—" she repeated.

The man's hand finally lifted away from her, and there was another _click_ from the gun. "Go on, get out of here," he said gruffly, sounding almost… apologetic?

Mercedes didn't pause to think on it. She quickly slung her backpack onto her shoulder, grabbed her jugs of water, and blindly ran for the door.

Miraculously, she made it all the way back to her apartment before she broke down into heaving, wracking sobs. She couldn't stay here.


	5. Neverwhere

_Neverwhere_

_DAY 3_

More than anything, Rachel was bored. Although she learned she could briefly hobble around the loft using only her toes and the ball of her foot, while keeping her heel away from the ground, it was difficult to stand for more than a few minutes, and so she had no choice but to spend the majority of her time sitting either on the couch or at the kitchen table. With every kind of clock they owned gone dead, it was impossible to tell how quickly the hours were passing, and the minutes dragged on in a hellish stretch.

Lunch for Rachel consisted of canned pear halves eaten straight from the can with a fork, the juice messily dribbling down her chin. Dani, Santana, and Kurt had gone out to hunt for supplies early that morning and hadn't yet returned, and the worry that something had gone wrong sat uneasily in her gut. She supposed that they were probably fine, but the shouts of looters were still heavy on her mind and she couldn't shake the feeling that something _would_ go wrong sooner rather than later.

She didn't know what was going on – where the power had gone or why she couldn't call home to make sure her dads were unharmed – but she wished she could be doing more than sitting at her kitchen table eating canned pears. At least the others were able to go out and search for supplies.

Finally there was a small commotion from the corridor outside, and the door rolled open. Kurt stumbled in, his arms weighted down with a poorly balanced load of cumbersome objects, including a set of crutches and what looked like a miniature camping stove. Santana and Dani followed behind, each carrying plastic bags full of food and water.

"Honey, I'm home," Santana said dryly, dropping her load onto the table and collapsing into the chair next to Rachel in exhaustion. "The power had better come back before we have to do that again."

Dani flipped the light switch on the wall a few times, her shoulders slumping in disappointment.

"Did it go okay?" Rachel asked.

Kurt pulled his fingers through his unkempt hair. "We found these for you," he said with a forced cheerfulness, handing the crutches over the table to Rachel. "They're cripple-chic."

"Thanks—"

"I'm going to go lie down," Kurt cut her off abruptly, not meeting her eye. He strode stiffly away from the kitchen and disappeared behind his curtain.

Santana and Dani exchanged a look as they unpacked the bags, and Rachel looked to them in confusion. "What's up with him?" she asked.

Dani swallowed. "There were a lot more bodies out there than we expected."

For as long as it took the three girls to unpack and organize the supplies, not one of them said a word.

* * *

The small garage attached to the Hudson-Hummel house was cool and damp since the radiator sat uselessly in the corner. Burt, desperate for something to do besides drive himself crazy worrying about Kurt, pushed up his sweatshirt sleeves and reached into the engine of his truck. No matter how many times he turned the key in the ignition, the engine refused to turn over. His fingers were stained black with oil, and he'd found not a single thing wrong with the car no matter where he looked. It was simply and inexplicably dead.

He'd pulled the garage door up all the way to let as much sun in as possible, but it was foggy and grey outside and the light was minimal. A few people had passed the street over the past couple of hours, skirting by like shadowy ghosts in the mist, most likely heading into downtown Lima to scavenge for food and supplies.

"Burt?"

Burt jumped, the back of his head slamming into the truck's hood. "OW!"

"Sorry," said Carole, stepping into the garage and pulling her sweater tighter around her torso. "You okay?"

Burt rubbed at his skull with the unstained heel of his hand, wincing. "Yeah, I'm fine. I've done that so often that I think I have a permanent dent."

Carole prodded the back of his head. "Seems fine to me," she said through a smile. She looked down at the exposed truck engine. "Any luck with this thing?"

Burt sighed, clicking his tongue against his teeth. "Nope. There's absolutely nothing wrong with the truck, but it just won't start. I tried everything with your Volvo too; same thing there."

"Sandra from across the street visited earlier to make sure we were okay," Carole stated. "She says that it might have been some kind of electromagnetic pulse or something that knocked the power out."

Burt flapped a hand. "I'm no good at physics."

"She said it's the only thing that could kill all the batteries."

"Well, then maybe she's right."

Burt had no clue what could cause an electro-magneto pulse or whatever Carole called it, or where the hell it might come from, but in any case he thought it was a little weird that it had been three days and nothing had changed but the weather. With the fog muffling all the sound from outside, slowly drifting by and chilling the air into an eerie stillness, Burt thought it seemed like the town had dropped from the face of the earth into some kind of strange limbo.

All things considered, Burt supposed it was entirely possible.

* * *

Mercedes' heart thudded at a terrifying pace beneath her ribs, the pen trembling in her hand as she shakily scrawled a letter to her roommate. She didn't want to think about the possibility that Erica was lying dead in the street somewhere at the mercy of the sun and the crows, but since Mercedes had heard gunshots going off in the distance at random intervals it was difficult not to entertain the idea. She didn't know why anyone was firing guns at one another, but she wanted nothing to do with it.

So she finished her note briefly explaining where she was going and wishing Erica the best, and she stuck it to the now-useless (and empty) refrigerator and prayed that Erica would eventually come back to find it.

Hefting her heavy backpack onto her shoulders, Mercedes took the handle of her tightly packed suitcase and wheeled it along behind her as she made for the door. A bead of sweat dripped down the side of her face, and she couldn't tell if it was just from the heat or from the panic clawing at the inside of her stomach.

She drew a long, deep breath in through her nose and gradually released it, feeling like she should be rationing her oxygen in addition to her food.

_It's not too late,_ Mercedes' thoughts prickled in the back of her brain. _You can just stay here and hide until all of this blows over. You'll be safe.  
_

Another slow breath, her blood roaring in her ears. Despite the heat, her fingertips were ice cold.

No. She had to leave; she knew that. Staying in Los Angeles would mean being alone, slowly baking in her apartment until she was no longer able to find food outside. She'd already had a gun to her back once. She hated to think what another encounter like that would result in.

Staying was not an option. It had never been an option, and she was doing herself a favor by realizing that now rather than later.

Mercedes swallowed, her tongue feeling too big for her mouth. She opened the door and stepped out into the hallway, pausing before letting the door shut to pull her apartment key out of her pocket. She stared at it for a long moment, debating whether or not she needed to bring it with her.

Then, in the spirit of refusing to allow herself to turn back, Mercedes tossed the key into her empty apartment, and let her front door lock behind her.

* * *

"Do you have any… eights?" Dani sighed boredly from her seat on the floor by the coffee table, opposite from Rachel on the couch. She idly mixed her cards up in her hand, wondering how the hell anyone had ever survived without electricity for more than twenty-four hours.

"Nope," Rachel replied. "Go fish."

Dani pursed her lips, drawing a card from the pile on the table. "Your turn."

"You know, you don't need to play just to keep me occupied," Rachel said. "This game isn't that much fun with only two people anyways."

"I'm not," Dani promised. "I'm trying to keep _myself_ occupied. We've already sorted and rationed the food, we've gotten the supplies we need for the time being, and I'm not tired enough to take a nap, so it doesn't seem like there's anything else to be done."

Rachel shrugged.

"I don't suppose your bandage needs a change?"

"You sound a little too hopeful to get your fingers on my gross foot wound," Rachel remarked with a light chuckle. "And no, I changed it an hour ago. You could go see if Santana needs help with dinner?"

Dani glanced over to the kitchen window, where she could see Santana cooking with the camp stove out on the fire escape landing. "You sure you're okay?" she asked.

Rachel waved a hand, sitting up to gather up the cards. "Yeah, I'm fine. I'll play Solitaire or something. Go on."

Dani nodded, pulling herself to her feet. "Call if you need anything," she said over her shoulder as she went to join Santana on the fire escape.

"Hey," Santana greeted her as Dani swung her legs through the window. "This is actually working like a charm." She stirred the small pot resting on the camp stove, the water near boiling. "First time we've gotten hot water since the blackout. Let's just hope we don't get sick of ramen."

"I'm sure we will, if the power doesn't come back," Dani said. "You need any help at all?"

Santana shook her head. "No, it's kind of a one-person job."

Dani sat on the stairs leading up to the roof of the building, her hands between her knees. It was a bit strange seeing Santana dressed so… _unimpressively_ was probably the appropriate word. She wore plain jeans and a thin sweatshirt, and her hair was in a half-hearted twist bun, carefully brushed but unwashed. Dani could hardly blame her for that; with the pumps for the building's plumbing long dead, none of them had been able to bathe beyond rinsing off their armpits over a bowl of soapy water in the sink. Dani didn't think she'd ever even seen Santana without makeup.

Santana looked at her askance for a moment. "What are you staring at?"

Dani blinked, straightening up. "Nothing, sorry. Spaced out."

Santana ripped open a ramen package and dumped the contents into the boiling water. "If you're bored, you can go see what Kurt's up to. He went up to the roof like an hour ago."

Dani stood up, eager for the chance to do something rather than just sit and feel useless, and quickly ascended the steps up to the ladder at the top of the fire escape. Scaling the handful of rungs and carefully climbing over the raised edge of the roof, Dani saw Kurt standing at the far side of the building, looking out across Brooklyn toward the river and Manhattan beyond.

"Hey," Dani called as she approached, not wanting to startle him. He turned around and gave a small wave, allowing Dani to walk up and lean on the short wall beside him. "What are you doing?"

Kurt squinted into the sun, which was just beginning to touch the skyline in the west. "I've never seen the city this quiet," he said.

Dani made a noise of agreement in her throat, musing aloud, "More than eight million people, and none of them making a sound."

Kurt was silent for a long time, apparently deep in thought as the sun inched lower in the sky. There was a light breeze that buffeted their clothes, and Dani spotted a flock of pigeons swooping up from a park several blocks away.

"We should leave."

Dani's gaze snapped back to Kurt, not sure she'd heard him correctly. "What? Why?"

Kurt straightened his back, tracing an invisible pattern on the wall with his finger. "Santana was right," he said, and it almost sounded like it pained him to admit it. He gestured to the empty skyline. "There's no planes. No helicopters. I was up here last night too and I didn't even see any satellites." He bit his lip, shaking his head. "There were _riots _in Manhattan, and no one's come to help."

Dani didn't know what to say, and a cold heavy rock was settling into the pit of her stomach.

Kurt scratched at his forehead nervously. "My point is, it's not just New York," he continued. "It might be the whole country. It might be everywhere. I don't know. Either way, we can't just sit here and wait until someone breaks into our apartment to steal our food – which, by the way, we _will _run out of eventually."

He let out a heavy breath, and Dani wondered how long he'd been running over this in his head.

"I need to know my parents are okay." He swallowed, his voice cracking. "I'm sure Santana's just as worried about the same thing, and Rachel too."

"Kurt…" Dani started carefully. "That means walking. To _Ohio_. Rachel can't even stand."

"We'll figure something out."

"It'll take weeks."

"If it means knowing our families are okay, then it's worth it." He chewed on the insides of his cheeks, looking over to her and meeting her eye for the first time since she'd climbed onto the roof. "Are you going to go home?"

Dani's stomach abruptly twisted painfully in her abdomen, and she shook her head, biting back an unexpected sting in her eyes. "No," she said. "N-No, my parents kicked me out of the house. I don't think they'd want to see me even if I did walk all the way back to Tennessee."

The look in Kurt's eyes was something akin to pity. "You'd be welcome to come with us," he said.

Dani nodded wordlessly in gratitude.

"Come on," he said, tilting his head back in the direction of the fire escape. "We can all talk it over during dinner."


	6. Foggy Nights

_Foggy Nights_

"I think we should leave."

Simultaneously, Rachel and Santana stopped eating, their forks clinking against their bowls as they stared at Kurt, the light from the kerosene lamp in the middle of the table flickering over their faces. Dani straightened in her seat, bracing for what she predicted would be a passionately loud debate.

"And… go where, exactly?" Santana asked.

"Back home."

Santana put her bowl down, leaning forward with her hands flat on the table. "Kurt, I don't know if this particular detail escaped your attention," she said, "but transportation's a bit dead right now."

"I know," Kurt replied.

Rachel's eyes widened slightly. "You mean… walk?"

"People walk across the country all the time."

"…No, they don't," Santana argued.

"Look, all things considered, Ohio isn't that far," Kurt countered. "We'd only have to make it through New Jersey and Pennsylvania. That's what, two hours by plane?"

"Yeah, by _plane_, Kurt!" Santana cried. Dani couldn't decide if Santana looked more pissed off or astonished that the idea had even entered Kurt's head. "Do you have _any_ idea how long that would take on foot?"

"Probably weeks."

Santana blinked, her jaw clacking shut as if she'd just realized Kurt was actually serious.

"Kurt, why would we leave?" Rachel asked.

His jaw tightened, and he looked down at his hands for a moment. "I don't think the power's coming back," he admitted. Rachel swallowed, glancing nervously at Dani. "At least, not for a long time. And if it's not, then I don't want to be stuck here."

Rachel chewed on her lip for a moment, twisting a strand of hair around her finger. "Kurt, we'll be okay here," she said. "We can get food and water from the stores, we're inside, we have beds."

Kurt's response was measured and even, but Dani could still hear a touch of trepidation beneath his voice. "There are _millions _of people in this city. Do you really think that supplies are going to last?"

Rachel's mouth clamped shut.

Dani swallowed, unsure if she should take part in this conversation. Honestly, she had no idea if she agreed with Kurt or not. On the one hand, it was ridiculous to assume that just because the power had been out for a few days that it wouldn't come back; plenty of places had several-day blackouts all the time. But on the other hand, she'd never seen nor heard of a blackout like this before, and she couldn't think of a single thing that would cause _all_ electricity to be wiped out regardless of whether it was connected to the power grid. And the uneasiness settling heavily into the pit of her stomach wasn't a great indicator that everything would soon be all right.

"Kurt," Santana rejoined the debate, her voice quieter than before. "It makes absolutely no sense to leave. Okay, yeah, it's not entirely safe here, but why the _hell_ would it be _more_ safe for us to walk from New York to Ohio?"

Kurt yanked his fingers through his hair. "Santana, _there is nobody coming to help_," he snapped. Santana sat back abruptly in her chair. Kurt sighed, scratching at his forehead. "It's been three days, and we haven't seen anyone coming in from anywhere else – no military, nothing."

"What is that supposed to mean?" Santana demanded.

"I mean that it's happened to a lot more places than New York. You were saying the exact same thing two days ago, Santana," Kurt insisted. "And you were right. This isn't just a power outage."

Santana pursed her mouth, shaking her head.

Dani finally worked up the courage to interject. "Kurt, maybe it would be better to take a few days and think this over."

Kurt's eyebrows snapped together. "I thought you agreed with me on this."

"I never said I agreed with anything."

Kurt glanced at both Rachel and Santana. "Am I really the only person who thinks it would be worth it?" he asked in disbelief. "I mean, aren't you worried about what's happening back home?"

Rachel tucked her hair behind her ear, speaking hesitantly. "Kurt, it's just… we don't know what this is. We don't know what's going on, and we really _don't_ know that no one's coming to help. I mean, what if the power comes back in a week and we're suddenly stuck in the middle of Pennsylvania?"

"Not to mention the fact that Rachel can't even _walk_," Santana added harshly. "Did you factor that into the equation?"

"I thought about it, yeah," Kurt snapped.

"Where would we sleep? Are there any motels still open? How would we deal with the weather? Can you promise that we'd have food when we needed it?"

"I don't know."

"How do you know that we won't be robbed?"

"I don't."

Dani reached forward and put a hand on Santana's arm. "Come on, Santana, lighten up a bit."

"Kurt, it's just not a good idea," said Rachel.

Kurt huffed. "Fine," he spat, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms over his chest. "We'll just sit here, then. Fine."

* * *

Blaine and his parents buried Cooper's body in the soft loam at the lower end of the wide grassy slope behind their house, close to Gina's flower garden. There was no coffin and no headstone, only a patch of not-quite-settled soil and a few gardenias Gina had planted at the head of the grave. It hadn't even occurred to Blaine that the spot was pretty, and he hadn't yet wrapped his head around the idea that anything that had happened in the past three days was anything other than a horrifically vivid and elaborate nightmare. His upper arm was bruised a deep purple from repeatedly digging his fingernails into his skin, attempting to pinch himself awake. And he wasn't sure why, but Blaine found that his hands would not stop shaking.

There had been no funeral for Cooper – not even just for the three of them. Gina only shook her head and brushed it off when Timothy suggested they have a small service.

"Gina—" Tim tried to argue, but his wife quickly cut him off.

"We'll have a service," she insisted, "when all this mess has blown over and we can have a proper memorial at the church." Her lips tightened, and Tim's shoulders slumped.

Blaine swallowed, staring out the window to the back lawn at Gina's garden and the plants drooping in the damp. It had been two days and the fog blanketing Lima still refused to lift. Blaine picked anxiously at his fingernails, frustrated that they were still clogged with dirt from digging the grave. His stomach clenched in his abdomen, briefly reminding him that he hadn't eaten breakfast, nor dinner or lunch the day before.

"Blaine." Tim's voice snapped Blaine's attention away from the window. His father nodded his head towards the front door, picking up two backpacks from the coat rack in the foyer. "Come with me. We need to pick some things up from downtown."

Blaine really didn't want to go out there again, but he didn't have the energy to argue and the thick air inside the house was suffocating him, so he took one of the packs and followed his father to the door without a word.

"Be careful," Gina called after them.

It was quiet out in the fog, and the mist hugged close and clung to Blaine's hands and hair and clothes. Blaine regretted leaving the house almost immediately – it wasn't any easier to breathe out here – but at least the cool air was beginning to slightly soothe the nausea resting in the bottom of his gut.

"What are we getting?" Blaine asked, his voice stifled in the murk. He shifted the empty pack on his shoulders. It was strange to be using the backpacks for anything other than school.

"We need to pick up some food and a few other supplies," Tim replied, staring ahead into the haze as they walked along the road towards central Lima. "Matches, charcoal for the grill, that kind of thing."

"Are we going to steal it?"

Tim's expression was grim. "If the stores are still shut down, then yes."

* * *

Mercedes jolted awake at the screech of a falcon somewhere overhead. She scrunched up her eyes, the harsh sunlight shooting daggers through her eyelids, and gingerly sat up. She let out a pained hiss through her teeth as her muscles were stretched, her legs screaming in protest. It felt as though every muscle fiber under her skin was burning up, sore from a full day of nothing but walking through the deadened city and then sleeping on a hard bench all night. She hadn't reached the hills to the northeast of L.A. until late evening, and she'd slept on a bench alongside a hiking trail overlooking the sprawling city all the way out to the ocean.

Groaning as she pulled the kinks out of her neck and her back and carefully extended her legs, placing her feet back on the ground and sitting straight up on the bench, she grumbled that her choice of camping spot had been a lot nicer last night. Which was true, of course – she'd gone to sleep watching the stars in the sky, listening the sigh of the breeze and a few night birds cooing in the sparse trees further up the mountain – but now in the blinding sun it was just brownish and rocky and bright.

Coughing to clear her dry throat, Mercedes pulled out her ponytail and wrapped her already-frizzed and tangled hair into a bun as tightly as possible to get it off her neck. Stifling a yawn, she pulled a water bottle out of her pack and downed half of its contents before chiding herself for not thinking of saving it for later. _There's got to be a gas station or something eventually,_ she thought reassuringly. _I should get a map too._

For a few minutes, Mercedes sat on the bench and watched the unmoving city spread out below. After only a few days of dead cars and buses and A/C units, the haze of pollution had noticeably cleared, not quite gone but already allowing for more of a view. There were no sounds at all wafting up from the streets on the wind, leaving the whole of the city lifeless and achingly silent. She could see a few single plumes of smoke at different points several miles away, signaling the fires in looted stores and homes.

She suddenly was slammed with an overwhelming sensation of gratitude that she'd had the sense to leave before her apartment was raided. The image of the trampled corpse lying in the street outside, a crow pecking at his bruised and bloated face, flashed across her brain and she had to fight a wave of nausea.

She drew another sip of water, careful not to take too much this time.

* * *

Blaine and his father had to walk almost to the opposite side of Lima before they were able to find a grocery store that hadn't been completely gutted yet. Only about a third of the shelves were still full, and Blaine briefly wondered in the back of his mind how many people were actually just taking the things they needed and how many were hoarding as much as they could. He then wondered which category he and his father fell into.

As they quickly packed their bags with as much as they could carry, it was very gradually beginning to dawn on Blaine that, as surreal as their entire situation seemed, all of this was in fact _happening_ and absolutely none of it was just his imagination. The realization was causing an awful sense of motion sickness, as if the ground was swaying under his feet. He grabbed the edge of the nearest food shelf to steady himself.

"Blaine?" Tim said, pausing where he was picking up a shrink-wrapped hock of ham to place in his bag. "You all right?"

Blaine nodded wordlessly, his skull feeling like it was stuffed with cotton.

Tim sighed, zipping the backpack shut and setting it on the ground against the shelf. "Can I ask you a question, Blaine?" he said, crossing his arms over his chest.

"What?"

Tim chewed on the insides of his cheeks for a moment, appearing to debate whether or not he should actually say what was on his mind. "You didn't cry when we buried Cooper," he said, a muscle in his jaw twitching. "Why?"

Blaine swallowed, looking away as a rock settled into the pit of his gut. The phantom smell of gasoline mixed with blood and smoke weighed on his senses, and the image of Cooper's glazed-over eyes and crushed limbs stabbed into the back of Blaine's mind. He didn't even realize he'd bitten his lip until he tasted blood.

"I don't know," he responded tonelessly.

Tim's eyebrows pulled together slightly, his Adam's apple bobbing in his throat as he studied his son. Blaine shifted to his other foot in discomfort, hoping that Tim wouldn't try to talk about it any further.

After an agonizingly long, quiet minute, Tim finally let out a heavy breath and took his gaze off of Blaine. He picked up his bag again, slinging it over his shoulder, and Blaine's shoulders slumped in relief.

"Come on," Tim nodded his head in the other direction. "Let's get back to your mother."

And yet, as glad as Blaine was that Tim wasn't pressing the issue, there was an awful gnawing in his stomach – an unpleasant feeling that reached all the way to his brain and the tips of his fingers. His nerves were all suddenly screaming at him, his skin abruptly too small for his body.

"Dad?" he started, his throat going dry so quickly that the word came out as a croak.

Tim stopped again, turning around. "Yes?"

_I'm so sorry I didn't save him. It should have been me._

The words bottlenecked in Blaine's mouth, choking him until he was forced to breathe, shake his head, and say, "Nothing. Let's go home."

* * *

**Quick Author's Note To Be Deleted Later: Hey, all, just wanted to apologize for the delay in updating; I'm still attempting to catch up with all my work from the semester and I'm currently in Greece, where my only internet access is via internet cafes crowded with REALLY LOUD boys all playing videogames. Still trying to convince my dad that we need WiFi at the house, but it's a work in progress. Anyways, updates should increase once I'm back in the States on the 2nd of January.**


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